RCM will have other maritime roles and capabilities. It can be used for environmental missions, such
as monitoring oil pollution or changes in coastlines.
It also can provide data on ice quantity and density,
aiding in safe navigation for commercial and military fleets.

While the RCM is primarily focused on maritime
security requirements, it will have a capability to
monitor ground targets, particularly those in the
Arctic. The constellation will provide up to four satellite passes per day in Canada’s far north, and several
passes per day over the Northwest Passage.

Rear Adm. Gilles Couturier, deputy commander of
the Royal Canadian Navy, told Seapower that the service
considers RCM “a force multiplier for maritime domain
awareness” and an improvement on the surveillance
capabilities provided by Radarsat- 2.

“The Royal Canadian Navy plays a key role indetecting, identifying and tracking vessels of inter-est in Canada’s maritime areas, the Arctic regionand in support of expeditionary operations aroundthe world,” he said. “RCM will make this task a loteasier with expanded coverage and more frequentrevisit rates.”Other Canadian federal government departments,ranging from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, AgricultureCanada, Environment Canada, Natural ResourcesCanada and Public Safety Canada, will use RCM data.

But the biggest user will be the
Canadian military, accounting for
around 80 percent, Frawley said.

The surveillance to be conducted by the satellites is not
limited to the approaches of North
America and its northern regions.

“The orbit of the constellationis such that it will cover prettymuch the entire globe at inter-vals,” Frawley said. “With threesatellites in formation, we’ll beable to revisit anywhere we wanton the surface of the Earth.”Frawley said the U.S. govern-ment is keen on RCM and the datait will be able to provide.

“We have relations withthe NGA [National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency] and NRO[National ReconnaissanceOffice],” he said. “It’s predomi-nately the NGA we work with todetermine what their require-ments might be with RCM.”He noted that since NORAD has expanded into themaritime domain, the RCM will contribute to the orga-nization’s situational awareness, particularly of themaritime approaches to the continent.

“The U.S. is very interested in what RCM is going to
bring to the fight,” Frawley said.

To receive the data from the RCM, the Canadian
Armed Forces has started the Polar Epsilon 2 (PE- 2)
project.

On June 17, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan
announced that the government had awarded a 48. 5
million Canadian dollar contract to MacDonald,
Dettwiler and Associates for that project.

Ground stations will be situated on the east and
west coasts of Canada. The contract includes two years
of in-service support to operate and maintain the
delivered systems.

“PE- 2 is what we will use to pull down that critical
RCM information and feed it to the warfighters and the
ops centers that require it,” Frawley said.

At one point, there was consideration to upgrade
the existing facilities that currently are receiving data
from Radarsat- 2. But Frawley said newer technology is
needed to deal with RCM.

“With new computing capabilities it requires new
ground stations and antennae,” he said. “The plan is for
that to be in place when RCM is up and running.” n

COURTESYOFTHECANADIANSPACEAGENCYThe Radarsat Constellation Mission is shown in this artist’s concept. Its three radar-imaging sat-ellites can track vessels at night and through cloud cover, and will be used to enhance Canada’smaritime situational awareness and feed data to the U.S. military.